BACKGROUND Delirium is a common disorder in hospitalised older people and established cases may have a poor outcome that is not readily improved by intervention. Prevention of cases through education of medical and nursing staff has not been fully studied. OBJECTIVES To test the hypothesis that an educational package for medical and nursing staff would both reduce the number of incident cases...

In May 2003, investigators were trained and prevalence pilot study was conducted at the University Hospital of Tirana, Albania. Investigators were trained to assess the organizational problems of the first prevalence survey of nosocomial infections (NIs) in Albania. Twelve investigators were trained in 2 days. After the training, the pilot study was conducted in 3 wards. The investigators colle...

We analysed the characteristics of patients aged 75 and over admitted to the geriatric and general medical wards over a three month period in a teaching hospital. Patients admitted to the geriatric wards were slightly older, were more often female, more likely to be admitted during the day and during a week day, more likely to have been seen by their own general practitioner, had more chronic a...

The aim of this study was to help develop support services for carers of people with dementia on admission to a district general hospital. Qualitative methodology was used in the form of individual semistructured interviews. These interviews suggest that service developments need to take into account the individual need of each carer. Identified themes included communication, vulnerability of t...

BACKGROUND Studies of length of stay (LOS) in hospital usually focus on physician-independent factors. In this study, the authors identified physician-dependent factors and tested an intervention aimed at them to determine its effect on LOS. METHODS A prospective comparison of LOS on 2 general medical wards in a tertiary care teaching hospital before and after the intervention. The pre-interv...

BACKGROUND Community participation is often restricted after stroke, due to reduced confidence and outdoor mobility. Australian clinical guidelines recommend that specific evidence-based interventions be delivered to target these restrictions, such as multiple escorted outdoor journeys. The aim of this study was to describe post-inpatient outdoor mobility and transport training delivered to str...

To examine fluctuations in numbers of patients on surgical wards the dates of admission from January of each of the 5556 patients admitted from 1 January 1985 to 31 December 1987 were examined during computerised audit of a single surgical firm. The numbers of patients under the care of the firm fluctuated widely, often exceeding the 38 beds nominally available. Duration of stay varied from two...

OBJECTIVES Nosocomial outbreaks, especially with (multi-)resistant microorganisms, are a major problem for health care institutions. They can cause morbidity and mortality for patients and controlling these costs substantial amounts of funds and resources. However, how much is unclear. This study sets out to provide a comparable overview of the costs of multiple outbreaks in a single academic h...

Background Clostridium Difficile infection (CDI) is considered a ward-based nosocomial infection, due to contagion among patients. Molecular studies recently questioned ward-based contact for disease spread. Objective To investigate whether it is plausible that CDI spread in San Martino Hospital of Genoa was due to a ward-based contact and patient-to-patient diffusion. Methods We conducted ...

Cellphones are increasingly used by the health care personnels for communication. When put in the vibratory mode, these can be used even in noise restricted areas such as ICU’s, post operative wards, OT’s etc. However, cellphones which are seldom cleaned and often touched during or after the examination of patients without handwashing , can harbour various potential pathogens and become an exog...